Third Base
by Gunney
Summary: Following the events in "Play Ball" Hutch is glued to Starsky's bedside, watching his partner recover while the city pulls itself together. At precisely the wrong moment, or perhaps the best moment, a surprise comes calling for Hutch.
1. Chapter 1

Hutch sat on a hospital bed, his feet dangling. The bandages on his face and chest and arms felt tight and itchy. A sign of healing he was told. He wondered if, under the numbing lull of the sedatives, Starsky was itchy too. Were the ribs healing? Was his scarred and tortured lung repairing? Regenerating?

Starsky had been in surgery for almost eight hours the day before. He hadn't...they hadn't lost him, Hutch had been reassured, but it had come very close a few times. Starsky had lost a lot of blood, internally, but the greatest concern was the scarring on his lungs from a previous injury, and the damage that new scars would do in the future.

There was danger of a blood clot

There was danger of the hit to the head Starsky had received leaving him partially deaf in that ear.

There was danger because of Starsky's almost suicidal loyalty. He'd passed out, after all, in the Torino, with the engine running, and nearly asphyxiated.

Hutch's burns and the broken nose were nothing. Superficial. Painful, but they would heal. The wound that was opening with every hour that Hutch watched Starsky breathe under an oxygen tent. And that would be left gaping if Starsky didn't make it. That wound might just kill Hutch.

There had been a bomb, several bombs. They had been placed around the promenade of the local baseball stadium and had been responsible for killing thirty-seven people, severely wounding 15 more and injuring a countless additional number that included Starsky, Hutch and their teenaged friend Molly.

They'd found her while picking up the pieces, and thanks to Molly and her adoptive brother Kiko, the 10 boys Starsky and Hutch had taken to the stadium that day made it out without a scratch. But the explosion wasn't the end of it. The stadium was taken hostage by a group of at least 30 armed and masked men.

They'd done their best to look like a military group but Hutch figured out they were cons. Ex-cons maybe, but bound by a single desire that they hadn't found out yet. The end result was an afternoon of pain and fear, then a single moment of excitement and the stadium once more falling into the hands of the good guys.

Then Molly had told them something she remembered. She had heard part of the planning, had made an attempt to tell Hutch before. She confirmed what Starsky and Hutch had both feared. There was a second bomb. This one was on a timer.

Hutch had taken Molly and a stadium guard into the bowels of the concrete structure, leaving a stubborn, hurting Starsky in the Torino.

They had found the bomb. A nasty, ugly thing that they couldn't disarm. Instead they moved it, out of the maintenance room it'd been hidden in, into the smoke filled tunnel, and out onto the cleared baseball field where it exploded before Hutch could make it out of the stadium.

He'd survived, Molly had survived, Tom the security guard had survived, along with fifty others...Starsky was one of the ones hanging on by a thread.

After Hutch had given a statement and discussed what was fast becoming a city-wide effort to find the man behind the 30 cons, he'd been given medical leave to recover. Dobey had promised to visit once he was free, Huggy had been by with flowers. Minnie had visited, sitting with Hutch on his hospital bed.

The rest had been long hours of sleeping…"Hutch?"

Long hours of waking. "Hutch…"

Long hours of staring, waiting, hoping...a hand touched his shoulder.

He turned, expecting a nurse with pills. Instead he found Captain Dobey standing with the same weary look on his face that had taken over Hutch's whole body. They went still in silent thought.

"They say how long he's gonna be in that...thing?"

"A week." Hutch said. "Just in case."

Dobey nodded beside him.

"What about you?"

"I'm….tired." Hutch said. "They find any other devices in the stadium?"

Dobey shook his head. His mind a hundred miles away and a few years too slow. It felt far too familiar. Too close to the past. Too much of the same kind of worry. The same kind of fear. Dobey physically pulled himself away from it, letting his hand slide off Hutch's shoulder.

"They did plenty of damage. Took a lot of lives." Dobey said, as if Hutch hadn't been there. Hadn't seen it himself.

"I know," Hutch said, then closed his eyes and shifted on the bed, swinging his legs up and leaning his back against the pillows. Setting his head down felt like heaven and the weariness in every muscle of his body piled on like Lilliputians strapping down the giant. Hutch was ready to pass out, but Dobey's presence and the worry for his partner, kept him right on the edge.

"They're gonna check on him every few hours." Hutch murmured, breathing deep through his nose, finally able to do it.

"I'll watch him, Hutch."

"Fluids should be changed...in an hour. Needs a new blood bag in four hours."

"Mmhmm…" Dobey said, watching his man's eyes close and stay that way. It was as if Dobey's arrival had been the switch to put Hutch more at ease, letting someone else watch his partner for a few hours. It had been the concern of the doctor Dobey had visited before entering the room. Hutch hadn't slept since being treated. He sat and stared at his partner.

"He needs sleep, Captain." The doctor had said, and Dobey, knowing his men the way he knew his children, entered the room with that one goal in mind.

Goals.

Dobey watched Hutch's muscles relax, his body settling into the bed, and the captain found a chair to sit in, resting between the two beds, and thinking about the goals of the men that had so effectively disrupted their lives.

If the goal had been to cripple the city by killing off almost a third of the people that represented its infrastructure, the attack in the stadium had been a good start. The roll call of those that had lost their lives was staggering. Far too many of them had been cops, firemen, servicemen and women. None of them should have been children but there were some younger people on the list too. At least one judge had been in the promenade when the first bomb went off. A vice cop had been gunned down on the field.

Most of the baseball players had made it out unscathed, having been sequestered away in the locker rooms when the first explosion went off. The day after, they had unanimously donated their blood and their time toward cleaning up the mess the attack had left behind. On a rotating schedule each of the players spent at least eight hours of one day in the hospital acting as temporary orderlies, helping the cooks in the kitchen, or visiting the wounded kids and grieving parents.

If the purpose had been to tear Bay City apart, the attack on so benign a symbol as a baseball park had done the opposite. Bay City pulled together as it had never done before. Each of the 30 men arrested in the raid had to be interviewed, processed, housed. They were all identified as ex-cons, some on parole, some released, some considered at large with outstanding warrants.

The long interview process, a matter of waiting out men who were experts at waiting, took the most manpower.

Dobey, and some of the other captains, had been forced to spend a few hours in an interview room with a man they didn't recognize, just sitting and waiting. Then another cop would come in with a fresh cup of coffee and sit and wait.

All of the witnesses, those that had been hospitalized and those that had remained unscathed, had to be interviewed, their information taken down, statements and charges made. That meant hours of paperwork, careful cataloguing of evidence, and all of it had to happen while the events were still fresh in the minds of those that had experienced them.

Every cop, including Dobey, spent time at a typewriter, pecking out statement after statement.

The cops had started a quiet betting pool, the proceeds to go to the families of their fellow cops that were hurting now, betting on which of the 30 cons would crack first. Dobey and the other superiors saw it happening and let it happen, knowing the men needed a way to distract themselves.

There was an entire city full of people demanding answers, wanting revenge, chomping at the bit, ready to take it for themselves if something didn't happen and fast. Too much had been televised, too quickly, for the department to get ahead of the media and dampen the impact it had on the community.

They were pulling together for the time being, but eventually tempers would run too hot, the demand for answers would grow too great and something would snap. They needed manpower. They needed the cops that were capable of helping back on their feet as quickly as possible. That was why Dobey was in a hospital room instead of the precinct.

Doing what he had to do so that Hutch would sleep. Let someone else watch his partner for a while. Get the rest he needed to recover.

* * *

It would be a few days before the first of the masked men finally gave in. He was a lifer looking at the death penalty. By that time the Bay City police department had collected over $2,700 in bets and all of it went to the widow of the cop that had been gunned down in the middle of the stadium. The support didn't stop there, but it slowed, only pocket change making it into a giant, glass jar in one of the stations, the cops adding to it, or their own collection jars, out of habit.

Hutch wasn't there for the interview, but Dobey saw that he got a transcript and was told that Hutch sat in the room reading it to his unconscious partner.

"The guy who cracked, his name is Ed. He's not one of ours. He was one of Mike's." Hutch shook his head, his eyes glazing over for a moment. No longer seeing the transcript, but remembering the captain that had died in his partner's arms.

"Ed had a lot to say. They call him Vega...the guy running the show. The guy with the voice. "Vega had a score to settle. He was set up good in Bay City once and got hurt. Had the rug pulled out from under him and he went down hard. He'd never done time before Bay City and he was a bear in the slam. You worked for him or you hid from him. We didn't have a choice when we got out. We were working for Vega until Vega said we were done.""

"Who do we know with that kinda clout?" Hutch asked, stared at his partner now free of the oxygen tent, then went back to the transcript.

"And that accent." Hutch added, thinking out loud. "Uh…."What did Vega make you in charge of?" "Accounts. I don't know where the money came from or how he got it, but each of us got paid. Damned good too. Cons don't get good paying jobs after jail. They get shit. Some of the guys were in it for the money. Some...cause it was what got them out of bed in the morning, know what I mean? I got paid more cause I could add to 20 without taking my shoes off. And I moved some numbers around. Trick I learned from a white collar guy in the slam."

Hutch shook his head, reading through the dense blocks of dialogue. "That's what a crowded jail gets ya, Starsk. Smarter criminals."

The blond checked on his partner again, studying the stillness that was so uncharacteristic of the brunet. Then he went back to the thick file and skipped a few pages.

""There were children hurt, and killed, in that attack. Do you know who was responsible?" "You know that's real sad….about them kids.""

Hutch stopped, snorted softly, and mumbled, "A con with a heart of gold." Then he kept reading. "" I mean...I wasn't one of the ones that killed 'em. And it was Vega that had his hand on the trigger with that bomb. He's one sick sonovabitch, he might'a killed 'em on purpose like." "Do you know, for a fact, who was responsible?" "No." "Can you give us the names of the men who participated in the attack?""

Hutch read on silently, watching in his mind's eye as Ed tried to weasel leniency out of the cop interviewing him, in exchange for names. In return the cop repeated over and over that leniency would be a consideration, if the information Ed provided was of use.

There were pages of that. Endless circles getting them nowhere before Ed tried to invoke his right to a lawyer. A right he'd previously waived. The transcript ended there.

Hutch knew that the next step would be to use the information they'd gathered against the other 29 men in custody. Try to get one of them to slip up or crack. It could be a domino effect if they did it right.

"We get these guys talking, we'll get Vega. He's probably out of the country by now." Hutch muttered, then set the transcript down on the table near his chair. He stood, winced at the soreness still settled in his muscles, and went to shift the blankets covering his partner. He put his hand to Starsky's forehead and brushed the curls back wishing the stubborn man would just open his eyes. Just once.

"What were they after, Starsk?" Hutch asked, bracing himself on the side of the bed. "What's the next step? What does Vega plan to do? We've got all the banks covered, all the schools have an officer in them. All the police stations are on alert, all the jails are on lockdown."

Hutch watched his partner's chest rise and fall, then stepped away a few feet to stare out the window. The sun was bright, like always. The streets were busy with cabs and cars, like always. The breeze was pushing through the palms, like always. Nothing was different, and yet everything was.

Their lives had shifted. Their city had been attacked and they still hadn't figured out why. That left a hole in the shield. It left them vulnerable and losing sleep because of paranoia. The risk of half the population panicking and rioting was very real, and other underlying issues, racial issues, economic issues, gender issues, were floating to the top. The "shit" metaphorically speaking, had been stirred and Bay City was responding slowly, but surely, to the wake up call.

It was the job of Hutch, and Dobey, and every other cop on the force, to look into the future and figure out, somehow, what the ultimate plan had been. How far had Vega intended this to go?

Why?

A gigantic question stuffed into three letters.

"Hutch…"

For the second time in a week, Hutch found himself pulled back to the present at the sound of his name. This time it came from a set of lips that had been still for too long. Hutch went to the bed, captured the floating hand and bent over his partner, laying his free palm against Starsky's forehead.

Blue, pain-filled eyes met his, Starsky's grip closed hard around Hutch's hand and Hutch hit the call button for the nurse a millisecond later. "Hey, partner, I'm here. I got a nurse comin'. They're gonna give you something for the pain. I'm here, buddy. Just take a slow breath, huh?"

Starsky's eyes remained glued to Hutch's while he drew in careful, tiptoes of breath, each one a little stronger than the last.

That something so fundamental and necessary to life, such as breathing, should be so painful for his partner, panicked Hutch and he hit the nurse call button a few more times until a crew of medical professionals stormed into the room.

Hutch stepped out of the way, reluctantly releasing his partner's hand. He watched them work, checking vitals, giving meds, checking bandages and breathing, and talking in hushed voices that seemed like shouts compared to Starsky's barely whispered responses.

It was a reassuring flurry of activity that Hutch became lulled by, only realizing it was over when a nurse laid her hand on his shoulder and asked if he needed anything.

"Uh...um. No. How...how is he?"

"He's awake." The nurse said, smiling softly. "That's a good thing."

Hutch let himself smile, but he knew it was weak. "Yeah…" He said, then looked back to the eyes that could read him in a heartbeat and communicate in silence. The blue scythed in half by drooping eyelids, but Starsky was in there. His mind was there, still intact.

Hutch went back to him, stroking the hair back from his forehead and holding his partner's hand until the man was asleep again, the lines of pain disappearing from his face. Hutch couldn't leave him. Not just yet. Starsky still needed him.

Hutch ignored the voice in the back of his mind that reminded him that he had a job to do. That bad things could be happening with him not out there to stop them. They had a city full of cops. Surely one of them could stand in for both Starsky and Hutch while the team was down. Starsky still needed him and there was nothing, nothing at all that could pull him away.

Or so he thought.

The phone call rang through to the hospital and Hutch was paged over the intercom. He left the room reluctantly and crossed the thirty feet of hardwood floor to the nurse's desk, picking up the hard, pale yellow receiver. The voice on the other end of the line was concerned for him. He heard the sounds of an airport in the background.

She wanted to know if he was okay, and he said he was.

She wanted to know if Starsky was okay, and he said, "He will be."

She wanted to know, "Can you meet me somewhere? I'm in Bay City. We have to talk."

"I...I don't want to leave the hospital, Luyu. Can you come here?"

"I'll meet you in the cafe. Give me twenty minutes to get there." She hesitated a moment, then said, "I love you, Hutch."

Hutch heard it in her voice. Something hard. Something that was scaring her. Something more than flying in to Bay City to find the whole town in an uproar. "Are you okay?"

"I'll tell you when I get there." Luyu said, then hung up.


	2. Chapter 2

They sat opposite each other in the cafeteria. Hutch had a cup of coffee in front of him that served to occupy his hands. Luyu had a cup of tea. She'd just finished talking and was staring at Hutch, waiting for him to respond.

Hutch had gone silent, staring at his cup, trying to put the pieces together.

Luyu couldn't take her eyes of the still ugly bruising on his face. The white pieces of plastic that held his healing nose in proper place. The contours of his profile would change. He would look just a little different than he had before. Still handsome. But not the same Hutch.

A lot more than a broken nose had happened in the past few weeks and she could sense the changes in him. Most prominently, he was tired. Tired physically, emotionally, spiritually. She'd felt the weakness of the bond between the two brothers. Never before had she witnessed it so strained.

She knew that her news only further strained that bond, pulling Hutch away from Starsky and toward her, but...he had to know. It affected him. It affected them both, and the tenuous relationship they'd maintained over the past few years.

Her news would affect her health, her future, the remainder of her schooling, what she could do when she began a psychology practice.

Hutch had a decision to make. It wasn't a fair decision, though she'd done everything in her power to make it fair.

He would need time, she told herself. The time that she'd had to discover, to think, to plan. Time that she'd robbed him of unintentionally.

To that end, Luyu squirmed in her chair then got to her feet, wincing a little at the constant pain in her lower back. Hutch watched her stand and scrambled to his feet a second later.

"Where are you going?"

"I have to use the restroom. It's one of those things about this. You have to pee a lot. I'll be fine. I'll be right back." She said, waiting for the panic in his eyes to dull before he nodded and collected his coffee cup.

Then he said something that warmed her heart unexpectedly. "I'll go with you."

He rose and came to her and she pulled him into a careful hug. She felt his arms tightening around her, felt her doubts sweeping away with the desperation and desire that translated through the embrace.

She also felt the desperate need to empty her bladder and had to push away. She kissed him, promised that she was only using the restroom, and suggested he stay there.

He caressed her cheek, kissed her lips, then perched back on the table and watched her leave for the restroom. Her body had changed, but her muscles had adjusted. She moved with the same grace of before, only slightly hampered by the change.

Even with the little that he could see, Luyu looked…

She definitely looked pregnant.

Five months, she had said. Five months since he had last seen her. Since they had last been together.

That meant, in four months, he would be a father.

To his horror, Luyu had immediately offered him an out. She was keeping the baby, she had said, but if he wanted nothing to do with it… She'd left it dangling. He'd been too stunned by the look of fear on her face to respond. He loved her.

He LOVED her but she was afraid of him. No...not of him. Of his response.

He had a good idea why. She'd told him years ago, the first night they'd met. She'd been raped as a teenager and had been completely responsible for picking herself up, getting herself treatment, and moving on with her life.

No one had been there to comfort her. So she'd comforted herself. She'd also, subconsciously, taken full responsibility for the incident, as victims often do. The end result had been a fierce determination to make it on her own, and a distrust of men.

That distrust had begun to melt the more time she spent with Hutch, but...but then she'd discovered she was pregnant. She'd been alone at the time. Had been too afraid to call Hutch and tell him right away. Afraid he would reject her. Afraid he would hate the child. Want her to get an abortion.

Baseless fears. That's what Luyu herself had called them. "Baseless fears, I know, but...I could lose myself in work and school. I called the morning sickness a bout of the flu and I just...kept going."

Until she started to show. Until three months turned into five and she realized she had to tell the father.

"I know I picked a bad day to do this…" She'd said, apologetically. Hutch had been too stunned to reassure her, too tired to pick up on the unspoken question. He would fix that as soon as she got back, he told himself.

Then he thought better and left the cafeteria, found the closest women's restroom and waited outside its door for Luyu to come out.

Baby's were supposed to be joyous occasions, he thought. The creation of something wonderful, generally between man and wife. The start of a new beginning. The gestation of a new generation. A new child was a gift.

Luyu had presented the news like the kid was a curse. A curse for Hutch. A curse that she loved and wanted Hutch to love too.

It meant complicated changes that Hutch couldn't think about with his city up in arms, his partner unconscious and fighting for his life.

He wanted Luyu there, yes, but he couldn't think about the baby. It was a distraction that he was trying not to resent. He was working on instantly loving the baby when a woman came out of the restroom. Not Luyu.

Hutch jumped forward and grabbed her arm and she jolted and stared at him wide-eyed.

"I'm sorry...I'm...I'm sorry. Was there anyone else in there?"

The woman jerked her arm from his grip and stomped away, looking like she was going to tell the first security officer she saw that there was a man lurking outside the women's restroom. Hutch groaned and sighed and knocked on the restroom door, listening. He pushed the door open a few inches and knocked again. "Hello?"

He heard a sob, then a quiet, "Oh Hutch…"

He pushed the door further open and stepped into the room, overwhelmed with a wave of moist air that smelled of perfume and baby powder. The world of women.

"Luyu.."

There was a wet sigh, an intake of breath and Luyu opened the door to the last stall in the row. She'd been crying, was still crying. Her face was splotchy with emotion, her arms crossed above her rounding belly. She leaned against the door jamb in the stall, watching Hutch invade the privacy of the women's restroom, looking like he was 10.

"I...I was concerned."

Luyu nodded.

"I scared a lady."

"What?" Luyu asked, laughing softly.

A weak grin lit his face and Hutch said, "She came out of the restroom and I grabbed her arm."

Luyu sighed and shook her head, the smirk still there.

"I may be dragged out of here by a security officer before long."

Luyu snorted and pushed away from the stall facing herself in the mirror. She turned on the hot water and let it run, her fingers sliding under the stream, adjusting the temperature before she pushed the sleeves of her blouse to her elbows and put soap on her hands.

Hutch watched her, going through the motions of a doctor scrubbing carefully to get rid of all the germs and bacteria. Not for her sake, but for the sake of whoever she would touch next. A protective act that she did out of habit. Not because of the new baby necessarily, but because it was who she was.

"You don't need to protect me." Hutch blurted.

He felt, more than saw Luyu startle, but her hands stayed under the stream until all the soap had been washed away. She reached for the towel hanging by the sink and pushed her hands through its depth.

"Maybe I'm protecting me." Luyu said, watching her fingers appear and disappear as she dried them, more thoroughly perhaps, than need be.

There was a jar of lotion in the corner of the sink and she used a small dab, spreading the cream over her hands and working it down her wrists, her knuckles almost white with the pressure she used.

"From me?" Hutch asked.

Luyu's hands froze. "No." She said, then closed the distance between them. She put her arms up around his neck and Hutch pulled her in tight. She laid her head against his chest and listened to his heart beat, and the roar of his lungs.

"Do you know...if it's a boy or a girl?"

Her head rocked against his chest. Hutch let his cheek fall against the top of her head and they stood, locked together comfortably, the baby pressed between them.

"How long can you stay?"

"I have to start clinicals. I can start them here. I have an interview tomorrow. I just...I didn't know…"

"Will you move in with me?" Hutch asked. "I...I need to be here-"

Luyu nodded. "You need to be here for your brother. And I want you here for him. I will be with you when I can be."

"And when I come home?"

Luyu lifted her head, her hands slid down, resting with her palms against his chest. She played idly with a loose button on his shirt. Hutch ducked his head, captured her eyes, drew them back to his face.

"I should probably cancel the furniture I rented." She said.

* * *

Starsky was awake the next day. He ate breakfast and lunch in the span of two hours then went back to sleep again, a bundle of energy until it ran out and he had to recharge. That's the way it would be for a while, the doctor's said, and Hutch recognized it from a previous long hospital stay.

He could deal with that. As long as Starsky kept waking up again. As long as he wasn't stuck with days of wondering if Starsky was going to sleep for forever.

Hutch had spent so much time watching his partner sleep he felt like he had to be there for those rare waking moments. There was still work to be done. Work that had been lying in dormant piles on his desk and Starsky's desk, growing by the hour. Hutch worked out a system with the nurses.

As soon as Starsky was awake they were to call him. If they couldn't get him at the station they should try his home phone number, and if that didn't work, his beeper. He made sure he had fresh batteries in the thing for just that purpose and went to work the following day with a cloud hanging over him.

The cloud contained a terrible battle of wills. The battle of his thoughts of the baby versus his concern for his partner. Somewhere in there was his love for Luyu, his need to do his part in helping the city recover, and tracking down Vega.

The cloud stayed with him for a week, only clearing when he was with Starsky, or with Luyu. When he was with one or the other he could concentrate on them. When he was with Luyu they didn't talk about the baby. They talked about his work, and her clinicals, and what they were going to do over the weekend. They talked about Starsky.

When he was with Starsky they talked about the case, the brunet's recovery, Luyu being back in Bay City semi-permanently. Hutch still hadn't told him about the baby. He didn't know why.

Starsky saw it, that one vital piece of information that Hutch was holding back, smoothly, or so he thought, avoiding.

On the morning before he was to be released, on the way from his room to X-ray, Starsky leaned toward his partner and idly asked, "So who died?"

"Hmm? Died? Did somebody die?"

Starsky gave him a long, pointed look then shook his head. "You walk around with somethin' on your brain for a week. I see it every time you walk in that door, but you haven't said a word about it. I figured...maybe he's keepin' it to himself. Doesn't want to upset me while I'm weak and vulnerable." There was a hint of sarcasm in the statement along with a rare show of Starsky's maturity.

The mix almost seemed morbid to Hutch and he sighed, "Starsk.."

"But this is ridiculous. I'm gettin' out tomorrow. I'll be back in the office on Monday. So...who died? What's the big secret?"

Hutch sighed and Starsky could feel it there on the tip of his partner's tongue for a long second before Hutch reeled it back in.

Starsky stopped, "No, no...you're my partner. We're best buddies. And we've already done _all of this_ before." Starsky's gesture seemed to include most of the hospital as well as the spot where the surgery stitches had been. "That's not what's buggin' you. It's something personal...what is it your parents? Your sister? Luyu?"

Hutch didn't react. It was the total lack of reaction that clued Starsky in and he nodded, then said, "You two break up?"

"She's livin' with me, Starsk, you know that."

"Yeah...you lived with Vanessa for a long time, too."

Hutch gave Starsky the withering glare that he deserved but his partner had made a good point. "No, we haven't broken up."

"You ask her to marry you? Did she say no?"

Hutch thought about it. He hadn't, she hadn't hinted at marriage. It had never come up in conversation. It wasn't something either of them wanted. Yet that was the normal course of things. He was lost in wondering about it and Starsky had to go in to X-ray before he could pester Hutch out of his reverie.

He realized Starsky was back when a headache started to form right behind his forehead. It pounded in tune to the questions.

"Did she get kicked out of school?"

"No."

"Did she quit school?"

"No, Starsky, she's here for her clinicals."

"Did she have a fight with her brother?"

"What? I don't know."

"Is she sick?"

Hutch didn't respond, glaring under hooded eyes and holding the door to Starsky's room open, waiting for his partner to go in. Starsky crossed his arms over his chest and stayed in the hallway.

"Go in there, take your meds, and I'll tell ya."

"Sure you will. You'll stall til I'm tired then make some excuse to leave." Starsky said bitterly, but he walked into the room. He was moving faster and easier than a week before, and his nurses had told Hutch he'd been doing full miles and more on the treadmill in the therapy room. It was good news for his lungs, good news for his body. Good news for the healing, traumatized ribs.

He knew Starsky was more than bored at that point, plenty frustrated at the lack of progress on the case. Hutch wondered why his own personal cloud was such a fixation for Starsky until he thought about finally spilling and saw something golden, silver and beautiful on the metaphoric horizon.

It was the light at the end of the tunnel. It was the prize at the end of a marathon. It was relief, acceptance. The end to a fight. A fight he hadn't realized he'd been embroiled in. For a split second he had absolute clarity and he knew precisely why he'd held the news off for so long.

Then it disappeared in a flash and Hutch blinked at his partner, perched on his bed, glaring at him.

"What's wrong with Luyu?" Starsky demanded, crunching down on the pills that he hadn't bothered to take with water.

"She's pregnant." Hutch said.

Starsky froze, mouth full of bitter, powdered pills. He leaned toward the glass of water on the bedside table, swallowed it in one long gulp, cleared his throat and asked, "Pregnant?"

Hutch nodded.

"And do you know who the father is?"

"Starsk! I'm the father."

Starsky grinned. It started out slow but became the kilowatt variety in very short order. "You're gonna be a dad?"

Hutch could feel the flush of blood to his cheeks and looked away, accepting the rush of embarrassment along with the joy that effused from Starsky's grin. "You're gonna be a dad, Blintz!"

Starsky was almost shouting and Hutch put a hand up to calm him a little.

"How far along? Boy or girl? When's it due? What are you gonna name it?"

Hutch barely managed to field the first two questions with a half-uttered "Five months, and I don't know."

After that he just shook his head listening to Starsky plan a baby shower for Luyu and for him, planning the cigars he would buy, the cradle he would ask a carpenter friend of theirs to make.

Starsky practically had the kid in college by the time his pills kicked in and his words started to slur.

While he helped his partner under the blankets Hutch tried to think of him as Uncle Starsky...or would it be Uncle David?

He hadn't thought of the baby as having gender. As needing a name. As needing a special bed to sleep in. Clothes to wear. Food to eat. The baby didn't have needs beyond what Luyu could provide, so he hadn't thought about it.

That was why he hadn't told Starsky. Starsky would start him thinking about those things. Worrying about them. Starsky would find a way, directly or indirectly, to remind Hutch of his own parents, and the possibility that he could become what they were with a baby on the way.

Hutch's fear...that his future child would get the same treatment he had received, blossomed into being and grew into a Herculean spectre in the time it took for the blond to reassure himself that his partner was comfortable and asleep. It was no longer a shapeless, nameless cloud that followed him out the door.

It was an eight-foot shadow of the father Hutch had always feared becoming, closer than it had ever been before.


	3. Chapter 3

Hutch stopped shaving. It was unconscious at first, a result of not wanting to accidentally bump his still healing nose. Two weeks in, the five o'clock shadow becoming a tried and true beard, and Luyu commented, as they lay in bed together, that he looked different. He smiled at her, found her lips, then felt her fingers on his bearded cheek and realized.

"Does it bother you?" He asked, his rough fingers coming up to cover her smooth, cool ones.

Luyu responded with quiet thoughtfulness, something that Hutch had learned meant he might not like the answer, but when it came it would be Luyu's honest and heartfelt opinion. They were both interrupted by an unexpected jolt in her belly and Luyu's eyes widened. She grinned and took Hutch's hand, guiding it to the rounded lump and the distinct jabs coming from within.

Hutch felt a foot or a hand making solid right hooks or straight kicks against Luyu's skin. He kept his hand glued to her belly fascinated by this new, unexpected connection to his unseen son or daughter. Luyu watched him, watched as his blue eyes danced behind blonde lashes. She wondered, as she fed her fingers through his lengthening hair, if their baby would be blonde or dark haired. Blue eyed or brown. Hutch turned a smile her way and she grinned back, wondering if he or she would have thin lips like their father, or full lips like hers. Would they look Native American, or Scandinavian? Or some beautiful combination of both.

When they finally rolled out of bed, Hutch to shower and shave all but his mustache, and Luyu to prepare breakfast, and the picnic lunch they would need later in the day, Luyu's fingers itched with the desire to map her baby's features out exactly. She hadn't sketched in ages, but suddenly she had to see it's face, fingers, nose, eyes, legs. While she cooked she found herself blissfully lost in the mental drawing she had already begun. Their child would have Hutch's eyes, she decided, ice blue with a slightly darker complexion and auburn hair. A lady killer, if a boy, and reason enough for her father to keep a shotgun on hand if a girl.

Hutch came out of the bathroom, a towel around his waist, smelling of soap and cologne. They enjoyed a brief moment pressed together before Luyu said, "I need to take out the compost."

Hutch looked over her shoulder at the overflowing coffee tin then said, "No. You don't." His lips and smooth cheeks found her neck, then her collarbone and she shuddered.

"But I do...I...it's overflowing." She insisted, her breath growing heavier despite her insistence.

Hutch had gone below the collar of her nightgown, his hands on her belly but his lips circling tender breasts. She felt her stomach drop a little, her body responding instantly to what Hutch was doing. Her mind went from the sunny compost to the cool sheets of Hutch's bed in seconds, but there was still a hot breakfast on the stove, and a picnic lunch to make, and it was already dangerously close to time for them to leave.

Luyu growled in the back of her throat, brought his lips back to a safer region, then kissed him. "I must. And you must. And we must."

"Make love." Hutch said, pressing into her lips.

"Make lunch, Hutch, lunch." Luyu insisted, then pressed in enough to tease Hutch as mercilessly as he had teased her. She felt his breath quicken, felt that he was already responding, and once again she thought about the sheets...the cool soft breeze that always caressed them after…

"Compost. You finish breakfast. We'll have time." Luyu said, hastily, then backed away, her right hand reaching blindly for the coffee tin, her lips still engaged with Hutch's.

"Breakfast." He murmured, then let her go, knowing they were both, now, in the same dire straits. He wasn't hungry for the eggs and toast, despite how delicious they smelled, but he knew his lover. Luyu would take breakfast in bed, over eggs and toast, any time she could. No use burning good food in their haste.

Luyu righted her nightgown, then threw on a light jacket of Hutch's before she headed out the door of the apartment, and to the leaf and weed strewn pile that promised rich, well aerated soil underneath. This was where Hutch dug for worms that he used when fishing, and the soil for his family of plants growing in the house. It was another part of Hutch, well established before he ever met Luyu, that had endeared him to her. He loved more than just her. He was passionate about the earth and its health, passionate about his work, and indelibly linked to his partner.

A song came to her mind. An old Native American prayer for the earth that was often sung on harvest festival days, and at the first planting. She remembered it because it served so frequently as a nursery rhyme for the modern members of her tribal family. She sang it, softly, spreading the contents of the coffee tin over the weeds from the week's cutting, effectively drowning out the footsteps of the man coming up behind her.

He used chloroform. The familiar scent triggered something in her brain, but not alarm, before the cloth crushed over her nose and she couldn't breathe. Her belly tightened at the top and bottom, her diaphragm struggling for air, her pelvic muscles drawing up her legs to instinctively protect the baby. She felt a rough hand crush her left breast and squealed, the pain and her fear bringing tears to her eyes. The squeal reminded her that she had weapons at her disposal and she screamed with the last of her held breath, then used her elbows to slam against the body behind her.

She still had the coffee can in her hands and she tried to use it to her advantage, swinging it behind her toward the head of her assailant. The move freed her face from the choking cloth and she only realized that she had begun to get light headed when fresh air rushed into her lungs, starting a coughing fit. She backpedaled, her feet scraping on the dewy grass, felt an arm slip around her neck and took in a hard, hasty breath screaming before her air was cut off again.

"Hutch!"

Then a hard, sinewed forearm was cinched against her windpipe, with a strength that translated the anger her fight was fueling. She couldn't breathe, felt pressure in her head building instantly, and clawed at the windbreaker sleeve, desperately putting her nails to use. She faintly heard Hutch's voice, felt a large vehicle sweeping up to the sidewalk. The mid-morning sun was dimming and she was moving, against her will toward the van. More bodies appeared, hands closed around her ankles and for a brief moment she felt air against her bare underside. She was naked under the nightgown and it panicked her to feel so exposed and helpless. Ghastly noises were coming from her throat and the baby in her belly was kicking, responding now that both of them hadn't had any oxygen for over a minute.

"Let her breathe!" A voice demanded, a voice that wasn't Hutch, and that didn't come from the man still holding her from behind. Another cloth swept under her nose, her throat was released and she got two sobbing gasps of air before more chloroform and cotton.

She was carried toward the vehicle, her limbs losing feeling, her eyes closing despite her desperate fight to keep them open. It suddenly felt like dusk instead of dawn, and she felt cold, vacant, like an empty prison cell. Made only of cold concrete and iron bars. She wondered if this was what death felt like, and instantly felt the negative space in her belly...as if her baby had had enough and decided to move out.

She remembered a voice begging, "Please stay." Her own voice, barely a rough whisper, then nothing.

Hutch had tried taking on three at a time. The van had swept up and emptied out like a subway car, men in black swarming Luyu, and more rushing to the aid of the man that had been attacking her. Hutch had grabbed the baseball bat by the door the minute he'd heard Luyu's scream and he used it now, freely. He swung at heads and arms and shoulders, clearing a two foot space around him and working his way toward Luyu.

None of the men had drawn any guns or knives, a fact that sank into his mind then disappeared once Hutch had a new target. A few of the men were on the ground now, clutching wounded limbs, and the men still on their feet kept their distance, taking wide stances and watching Hutch warily through the holes in their masks. Luyu had stopped struggling to his left, and a quick glance gave him a terrifying image. The pink gauzy lengths of Luyu's nightgown, floating under her suspended body, a limp hand flopping over the arms of the man holding her, her torso twisted so that the bump of her belly was exaggerated. Looking like a broken doll.

Hutch changed tactics and stormed after the men disappearing into the van. The tip of the bat hit the open side door once, then landed on flesh. Hutch dealt three solid blows to the man's head and shoulders before the van walls prevented him from taking a full swing. Hutch backed up half a step, slipped the length of the bat under the chin of the man who had managed to lay Luyu down on the floor of the van, then yanked back and felt the man's head smash against his chin. The unintentional blow traveled from Hutch's jaw, up through his nose and burst in the front of his brain as a brilliant flash of lightning but he hung on, yanking brutally on the bat until he felt a snap.

The man went limp, urinated himself, then slipped out of Hutch's grip and crumpled to the ground. The van started to pull away, the other masked men scrambling to make it inside and escape the enraged cop. Hutch launched the bat, end over end at the front passenger door and it shattered the window, lodging in the three inch gap it made in the glass. The sudden appearance of the bat distracted the driver and the van swerved into the path of a sedan coming up the road in the other lane, the impact of the two vehicles once again bringing the van to a stop.

Hutch threw himself into the still open side door and used his fists, elbows and head to do as much damage as possible. He was within reach of Luyu's ankle when the van lurched backwards, then forward, sweeping around the stopped sedan and starting down the road. Hutch changed tactics and threw himself toward the front, wrapping his left arm around the driver's seat and ripping at the mask on the driver's face with his right.

"Get him under control!" The driver shouted, the steering wheel rocking back and forth with the increasing speed of the van and the driver's one handed effort to fend off the blond cop.

Hutch clung to the seat, ripped off the ski mask, then closed his fist around the cloth and punched at the driver's right ear until the he felt cold metal slam into the side of his neck. The strike distracted him and he turned his head long enough to sling a right cross at the man in the passenger seat, trying to wield the bat in the confines of the front cab.

The driver hit the brakes and Hutch was tossed forward, pushing off with his legs in the last moment so that he slid onto the dash, instead of going headlong into the instrument panel. Hutch kicked out with his feet, using both heels to knock in the nose and teeth of the guy in the passenger seat then planted his left foot in the headrest, and went to kick the driver. The driver hit the gas, the van lurched forward and Hutch was once again between the front seats, scrabbling for purchase.

He got upright and had his right arm around the driver's neck when felt sharp, cold pain his back. His muscles stiffened and the pain came again, and again, in his shoulders, his lower back. He turned to address the pain and the giant, enraged bee that was attacking him shifted its focus to his right side, shoulder and arm.

He caught the wrist of the man in the passenger seat, stopping the onslaught and for a moment he registered the fear radiating from the man. The chassis of the van rattled around him, but the masked man with the knife was frozen in place, barely breathing, his knife arm going slack. A bead of blood rolled down the blade between them, trembling at the point of the knife before it fell, breaking the spell. Hutch kicked the the passenger in the chest with the last of his strength, keeping hold of the knife hand, preventing the passenger from escaping the full force of the blow.

The van rocked violently, and the passenger door flew open. The man with the knife dropped out of the van, grabbing at Hutch's leg at the last moment. With a helping shove from the driver Hutch flew out after the masked man, his left hand catching for a spare moment on the door. The driver jerked the van to the right, Hutch lost his grip and met hot asphalt, managing an awkward roll.

When the world finally came to a stop Hutch couldn't feel anything but the heat from the sun and the solid pressure of the black top preventing him from sinking into the middle of the earth. He turned his head toward the fleeing van, eyes focusing for a second on the painted over tags. The smear of white paint left the impression of the license plate, but he couldn't decipher the numbers or letters. Then the van was turning to the right. The vehicle had been white, but now sported a broad red streak. His own blood, Hutch realized, left there when he fell from the passenger side. A great big, bright red identifier that might help the police track down the van.

If they knew. If he could tell them.

Hutch rolled his head back to center, closed his eyes against the glare of the sun and drew in a low, stabilizing breath. He sat up, adjusting as he moved, to what was still working on his body and what wasn't. He flopped over onto his belly, pushed up with his left arm and right leg, and came to his feet slowly. The driver of the car that the van had hit had left his vehicle, jogging in hesitant spurts toward the masked man Hutch had left on the sidewalk. He'd gotten within feet of the man with the knife when he saw Hutch rise and came to a stuttering stop.

"Y-you ok man?" The driver was in his forties maybe, showing a bit of age around his eyes and mouth, but his coiffed hair was jet black. He'd sweat through the light green button down shirt he wore, shining leather loafers on his feet showed a smudge of something...maybe blood.

Hutch struggled to bring his thoughts together, staring at the driver before he looked to his left, to the front door opening on a house wife with a babe in arms, staring out at him. He pointed to the door and said, "Call the police."

"You're bleeding, mister." The driver said and Hutch looked down at the puddle forming on the ground under his right hand.

"Call the police." He said again, trying to force more will into the command, taking a short step forward. Pain arched up his back and the muscles froze again and he felt his right shoulder hitch up. He stopped, a bleeding, blond haired Igor, stuck to the asphalt like it had begun to melt the rubber soles of the deck shoes he'd slipped into before leaving the house.

"Call the police!" He begged, his voice breaking. The pain, or the fear, or the rage spilled tears down his cheeks but they were short lived. He forced another step, then another, gaining momentum in the barest of senses.

The man in the green shirt stayed rooted to his spot, staring at the trail of bodies, staring at the bloodied man trying to return up the street. The mother with the baby disappeared, the screen door empty and dark. Hutch was halfway to his driveway before he heard sirens. He'd reached his neighbor's drive before his body forced him to sit. Hutch tried to aim for the brick retaining wall but he missed and slid down to the sidewalk. Time passed without him noticing. He hoped no more than a few minutes, but enough time for the Torino to have screeched to a stop in front of him.

Starsky was on one knee beside him, talking to someone on Hutch's other side. Hutch glanced, caught the tailored sleeve of an EMT uniform, then looked back to his partner. The movement of his head seemed to perk Starsky up and he heard the brunet say, "He's comin' around."

"They took her."

"Took...Luyu?"

Hutch nodded.

"Men?"

Another nod.

"How many?"

Hutch sighed, closed his eyes, running back through the fight. "Five, ten maybe." He breathed, then there was hard pressure against his back and Hutch couldn't think anymore. Starsky's hand was hot and sweaty on the side of his neck, another hand clinging tightly to his left arm, and he came back to that heat.

"Were they in cars, trucks.."

"Van, white, blood on the side...right side." Hutch said.

"Which way did they-"

"North."

"We need to move him. These don't look too deep but he's lost a lot of blood."

"She's pregnant." Hutch said, fresh sweat bathing his face. The gurney wheels rattled as they dragged the empty bed onto the sidewalk, drawing Starsky's attention for a second.

"I know, pal. She'll be alright, we'll get 'er."

The EMT pushed Hutch's back away from the retaining wall and prepared to get behind his shoulders to lift him up. Another EMT moved in to grab Hutch's feet. Starsky moved back, supporting Hutch's right side and waiting for the count.

"I felt it kick."

"The baby?" Starsky asked, not fighting the hopeful smile.

"Yeah.." Hutch said, the beginnings of a smile of his own showing on his face before he paled, his eyes rolled back and his body went into convulsions. The EMTs reacted instantly, laying him back on the ground. One of them called for a tongue depressor and another barely stepped back in time to avoid a gout of vomit coming from Hutch's mouth. The attack ended as quickly as it had begun, and there was no blood in the vomit. One of the EMTs made the remark with what sounded like optimism.

Starsky lead the way for the ambulance, his siren and light going. He parked his Torino in the bay and followed the EMTs to the ER doors on the off chance that Hutch would regain consciousness, having more information about the attack, the white van, the men.

He stood outside the ER doors for twenty minutes before one of the nurses came for him. "He's awake. He wants you."

Starsky went into a room gradually emptying of medical personnel. Based on the heart monitor and the wads of bandages temporarily attached to his partner he could judge that Hutch was for the moment stable. He had on a blood pressure cuff and an oxygen mask lay by his head. He'd been propped by pillows and allowed to rest on his unwounded side and a pale hand quested out as soon as Hutch could smell his partner's cologne.

"Hey, Hutch, hey. We got APBs, we got all the cops out lookin'. Dobey's callin' everybody with a badge within a hundred miles." Starsky said, pulling a chair in close, grabbing the hand, holding Hutch's gaze.

Light, cool circles peered out of bloodshot, strained sclera. Hutch thought about Luyu, swathed in pink, perfect in all her pregnant, feminine glory. About the lax hand slung over a black clad sleeve. Her belly protruding because of the unnatural twist of her spine as they shoved her into the van.

He flashed on the image of the mother and child in the doorway. There, staring one moment, then gone the next. About the key differences between Luyu...and the mother. The woman in the house had her baby in her arms. Luyu still carried the baby in her belly.

The woman in the house had solid brick walls between her and the danger, Luyu...had nothing to protect her. Hutch had fought like a banshee, like a wild man, like a total fool...and she was still in danger.

The woman in the house had a ring. He'd seen it, he realized, glinting against the sun, brilliant against the dark blue of the sleeper the baby had been wearing. Luyu didn't have a ring.

The woman in the house had worn yellow. Luyu wore pink.

The woman in the house would sleep in her own bed tonight. Safe.

Luyu…

There was a knock on the ER doors and Starsky lifted his head to catch the top of Captain Dobey's dome before the door opened. The captain took two steps in then looked over his men quietly. He'd had a quick run down from Starsky while the brunet lead the ambulance across town, but the jumbled details never told the whole story. They didn't speak to the shockingly pale skin ringing deep bruises barely covered by the bandages. The clothes in rags so the EMTs could get quickly to the wounds, leaving the patient exposed and vulnerable.

"They found the van." Dobey spoke quietly into the silence. "It's empty. Left in a gravel lot under the highway. They're talking to homeless guys that hang out down there now."

Dobey crossed the room as he spoke, coming to the foot of the bed. "The van was stolen but the owner didn't have much to say about it. The inside of the van was clean...no blood other than...Hutch's." The captain raised a hand to gesture at the wounds on his man's back. "I told them to call me here once they have more."

Starsky's focus shifted back to Hutch for a minute, watching the blue eyes that were trying to close. He didn't know if Hutch was worn out from the pain, the news, or everything together. But it wasn't relief making his body relax.

"Hutchinson.." Dobey said softly, and Hutch's eyes immediately opened again. "The IA has questions…"

Hutch groaned softly and Starsky flashed the captain a look. Dobey put his hand up and his voice took on a sterner tone. "There are two dead men, and one civilian involved in this. And the only one that saw anything was Hutch...so far. We're canvassing your neighbors...but right now...after last month." Dobey went back to leaning on the foot of the bed watching Starsky's jaw tighten before the brunet looked back to his partner. The blond reached toward the tall cup of water on the stand by the bed and Starsky produced it, helping Hutch drink.

"Bat.."

"What?"

"Baseball bat…" Hutch enunciated and Dobey looked to Starsky for an explanation. Starsky was focused on Hutch, just as clueless. "My bat…" Hutch finally added.

"Who had the bat?" Starsky asked after a moment of open-mouthed fishing.

Hutch pointed to himself, his eyes once again trying to close.

"Finger prins." Hutch said, the words starting to slur.

Starsky looked to Dobey who was already turning to the door.

"I'll tell the officers on the scene to locate a baseball bat. Stick with him, Starsky." Then Dobey was gone, and Hutch slipped into oblivion, his partner glued to his bedside.


End file.
